The prior art recognizes magnetic sweepers and rakes for cleaning up stray ferrous objects from driveways, shop floors, parking lots, and construction sites. Objects such as nails can puncture tires, injure people, and, at airports, be ingested into jet engines causing costly damage. As the metal debris accumulates on the magnetic surface, it must be periodically cleaned off by hand. This is quite tedious since a good sweeper should have as strong a magnet as possible for good gathering and cleaning operation. However, this strong magnet holds tenaciously to the accumulated debris, making removal difficult. The present invention overcomes this problem.